The report<\/a>, published today by Brussels-based human rights watchdog Liberties and compiled by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), is one of 22 country reports forming part of an EU-wide analysis which has found an ongoing deterioration in the rule of law across Europe.<\/p>\nFive countries \u2013 Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy and Slovakia \u2013 are found in the EU report to be consistently and internationally weakening rule of law, with Hungary aggressively pursuing ever more regressive laws and policies.<\/p>\n
The report classifies countries as \u2018dismantlers\u2019 (consistently and intentionally weakening the rule of law), \u2018sliders\u2019 (democratic standards in decline without being part of a clear political strategy), \u2018stagnators\u2019 (rule-of-law conditions do not improve or worsen significantly) and \u2018hard workers\u2019 (countries where governments actively seek meaningful improvements in rule-of-law standards).<\/p>\n
In this year\u2019s report, just one country \u2013 Latvia \u2013 is considered a hard worker, while 10 countries are considered stagnators, six are sliders and five are dismantlers.<\/p>\n
Ireland is identified as a \u2018stagnator\u2019 in the report \u2013 which also states that Ireland is at risk of having its performance downgraded in next year\u2019s report.<\/p>\n
Claire McEvoy, head of research and policy at ICCL, said: \u201cFor the second consecutive year, Ireland has been categorised in Liberties\u2019 report as a rule of law \u2018stagnator\u2019, reflecting the absence of meaningful legislative or structural reform across core rule of law areas, including the justice system, anti-corruption, media freedom and institutional checks and balances.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite repeated recommendations from the European Commission, government progress remains limited or entirely absent. Ireland\u2019s continued failure to act risks entrenching systemic weaknesses and undermines the credibility of the rule of law monitoring process itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cICCL and many in civil society are very concerned about a number of government legislative proposals.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlans to curtail access to judicial review, presented as a measure to accelerate housing and infrastructure delivery, risk fundamentally weakening access to justice and limiting the ability of individuals and communities to hold the State to account. These proposals, alongside measures that may erode journalistic protections, signal a troubling direction of travel.<\/p>\n
\u201cTaken together, the lack of progress and emerging problem areas sound an alarm bell for civil society. This isn\u2019t a good look for a state taking over the presidency of the EU in July and campaigning for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council on a \u2018rule of law and civic space\u2019 platform.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s performance in protecting the rule of law is \u201cstagnating\u201d, with persistent failures to implement key EU recommendations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-372991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Ireland](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/justice-eu.jpg\")
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